Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 32, 10 August 1899, Page 1

Current Topi cs

AT HOME AND ABROAD

Tiir.RK are signs that the divinity which has BEING ioundout. so long hedged round our New Zealand education system is being gradually broken down, and that the fatal flaws and defects in that system ■ — viewed simply as a system and apart from the serious objections to which it is open on religious grounds — are being at last found out even by its friends. The time was when it would have been considered rank heresy and sacrilege to suggest any important alteration in the system, and the papers and the country would have been up in arms against the innovator. Now, inspectors and Boards, educationalists and teachers, unite in proposing the most far-reaching amendments. Ouite recently the Otago Hoard, acting on the unanimous recommendation of its inspectors, has abolished the standard pass system, and has resolved to try and induce all the other Education Boards in the Colony to follow its example, while the Education Conference, which has just concluded its sittings in the Xorth Island, proposed a perfect sheaf of important and vital alterations in our present education scheme. Accompanying these various proposals ior reform there has been a great deal of vigorous and thoroughgoing criticism of the existing state ot things, and the outcry is raised in so many dilterent directions as to show tb.it the present system is being very generally found out. Thus the Rev. Dr. Waddell, one of the best known figures in the Dunedin literary and ecclesiastical world, in a recent lecture on ' The Prospects and Possibilities of New Zealand Literature,' declared that 'he was not one ot those who thought our educational system perfect.' From the standpoint of his lecture, he had two criticisms to ofter upon its methods. 'I he first was that it left no room for specialisation. It proceeded on the assumption that children were like rows of empty buckets of equal si/es, and that they were capable of being filled with an equal amount of 'ologies, and that it was the business of the teacher to pertorm that office for them. That, of course, was absurd. Nevertheless, that was one of the absurdities that presumably wise men insisted on peipetrating. . . . The second point on which he oiler ed criticism of our education system, was that it was ruinous to the faculty ot observation. It withdrew the pupil far too much from direct contact with Nature. . . . He was as sure as possible that our educational methods were destro)ing in our children their observing powers. The loss was immense, anditmostsenousl} aftected the future of literature in this Colon) .' Professor McKen/ie, of Victoria College, Wellington, expresses much the same view. ' Under the old parochial system (of Scotland),' he said to an interviewer, 'the teacher was at liberty to give special attention to lndividt \1 cases, either in the direction of working up a ' duifer ' or assisting and stimulating the particularly promising pupil. Me was in truth the dominie, and enjoyed a certain amount of freedom as to his methods ot work. Under the present system, however, the teacher is a mere machine, set to work out a certain aggregate of result in a given time.' Mr. A. \Y. T>ndall, one of the ablest and most experienced teachers in Otago, is even more uncompromising in his condemnation of the system. ' A little reflection,' he says, in a letter to the Otago Daily Times, 'will show that the major part ol our so-called system of education consists of learning conventional and empirical torms and symbols. It does not confer real knowledge, but merely teaches how to potter and juggle with knowledgecounters.' There can be little doubt that the^e serious criticisms, which come from men in every way competent to judge, are just and true. The present system not only starves the moral nature of the children, but at the same time destroys their observing powers and crushes out all trace of individuality or originality. It is a healthy sign that the people are at last beginning to be disenchanted of their idol.

Hithi.rto the Catholic Church has been non-c \tiiolic leit to carry on practically single-handed the proti srs unceasing warfare which certainly ought to *r, \inst si ( ri,t be caiiied on against the insidious influence mx iFTir.s. exercised on the political and religious life ot the community by secret societies. It is interesting to notice, however, that at last non-Catholics in many directions are waking up to the mischief of these organisations and are waking a public and open stand against the evil. Thus in Paris a petition signed by a Urge number of the citizens has recently been presented to the Minister of Justice calling for the suppression of the Society of Freemasons on the ground that the law provides for an equality among citizens, and that secret societies are therefore and thereby forbidden. The petition was not one distinctively of Catholic citizens but was the outcome of a general feeling that the .Masonic sect was exercising an undue and untoward influence over the political affairs ot the State. Still more significant is the action taken by the National Synod of the Reformed Presb\ tenan Church of the United States at a convention recently held at Mansfield, Ohio. At this Convention the following resolutions were adopted in denunciation of secret societies 1. — That this synod calls on each and every member of this Chur.'h to give force to hn emphatic testimony against every form ot oath-bound secrecy, by tikmg a public stand against the evil. 2 — This Bynoil te-tiiii 1 -. against those Churches that knowingly pormir their members, wh le in aU< j gLiiioe to this un-Christian system, to si! undisturbed at the Lo-d"= table, or allow their ministers to olii -iate in the Christies rites of the lolge-room. ... — La the name of Him Who is governor among the nations, we protect against the national and state governments giving corpirate existence to any secret o-ganisation. The state wrongs lt-c-lt and Us citi/.e-u-i in permitting any association to be formed irom which the ottieers of the state are excluded. I.— We protect against chil and municipal officers appropuatiri" funds levied on the citizens for the entertainment of any secret society to oilici ite at the beginning or completion of any biuliim .? erected by public iunds. There i-> no uncertain sound about these resolutions, and it ma\ be safely assumed that as the sects realise more thoroughly the insidious and all-pervading influence of secret organisations they will more readily and more generally come foi ward to put themselves on record against these societies. As is well known, the C ttlioho Church has always been firmly and unalterably opposed Vj secret societies and has always, under the heav icsi pen.iluie-, loi bidden her children to join them. At then wor^t, ihe) are hotbeds of sedition and infidelity, and at thi ir very best they necessarily lead to in-dilterenti-.ui in religion and to the .substitution of the unknown rites of the lodge-room for the doctrine and authority of Holy Chinch.

So MX valuable figures have recently been ( \tiiulk \ . published man English newspaper in refutal'RdTi si an r von of the well-worn but ever-green calumny ioi'nirii.s. that the institution of the confessional in the Catholic Church fosters and increases vice and ctinic. '1 his venetable lament had been revived by an anti-Catholic lecturer named Walsh, who, in denouncing the LOiifession.il beloie a Protestant audience at Wellingboroughin England, declared that this institution ot the Church 'had produced in many countries gross immorality and vice.' The matter was promptly taken up by Mr. T. J. Laws, a Catholic layman, who pro\ed conclusively by figures taken from recogj nised Government statistics that the statement was an utterly false and baseless slander, and that, as Catholics already well knew, the very opposite was the truth. Even Protestant writers will admit — at least those who make any claim to have in vi stigated the nu'tei — that Catholic Ireland is by far the most rnoml portion ot the United Kingdom, but the figures cclkctcd h\ .Mr. Laws go further than that, and prove how muJi more moral Catholic countries in general are than Protestant lands. He-re, for example, is the ratio of illegitimate births on the Continent: —

Sweden (Protestant) 100 per 1000 Germany (f f Protestant) 87 per 1000 Prussia (Protestant) 80 to 90 per 1000 France (Catholic) 74 per 1000 Italy (Catholic) 65 to 66 per 1000 Spain (Catholic) 55 per 1000 It will be seen from these figures that Sweden, which is the most Protestant country is also the most immoral. The figures furnished by Mr. Laws regarding the illegitimate births in the various sections of the German Empire are equally conclusive. They are taken from the German Government statistics for 1 886, and are as follows : — Brandenburg (Protestant) 101 per 1000 Pomerania (Protestant) 100 per 1000 Prussia (Protestant) 80 to 90 per 1000 Sohleswigr-Holstein (Protestant) 91 per 1000 Westphalia (Oatholio) 21 per 1000 Rhineland (Catholio) 27 per 1000 These statistics tell the same tale, and demonstrate the immense superiority, in point of morality, of the countries under the influence of Catholicism. Then as to the question of drinking, Mr. Laws quotes figures which have appeared before in the columns of the N.Z. Tablet, but which will well bear reproducing. They dispose once and for all of the idiotic idea — so commonly held and so carefully nursed by the enemies of Ireland and of the Church — that the Catholic Irishman is a. drunken roysterer whose chief occupation in life is breakingheads and drinking whiskey. Here is the sober fact as shown by the Government statistics giving the expenditure on drink per head in Great Britain in 1898 :—: — England and Wales £4 2s 2£d Scotland S 1 l|d Ireland 2 14 10-Jd It will thus be seen that in the matter of 'general sobriety as well as of purity Catholic Ireland heads the list. The above sets of figures are well worth perusing and preserving. 'By their fruits ye shnll know them,' is as true of institutions as of individuals,, and when this test is fairly applied the Catholic Church comes out triumphant all along the line. One of the Auckland Herald writers has the WHAT- are we following : CdMING to 1 I read lately about a case in London, when a boy was put in the witness-box, ard on beingf asked if he knew what the Bible was, replied : ' Wofs that ? ' He had never heard of such a thing:. Verily we are makiu£ progress, and we shall <-o<!n be in the same position in New Zealand. Aud ■what is to be don* about oaths in courts of justice, because an oath is founded upon the theory of recognition of rewards and punishments, or at all events of punishments. It is clear that the forms and declarations will have to be superseded by some such formula as this : ' I re r o^nise that this is a court of justice, that it is of importance that I should be precise in my statements of fact. I will, therefore, in order that the cse maybe fairly determined, tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.* With, tnat we shall have to be content. And so this is soon to be the position in New Zealand ! 'Verily, we are making progress/ But does not the writer's lament remind one of the good, simple folk depicted by Dickens, who spent their time sending mufflers and mittens to the African savages that didn't want them, and failed to see the misery that pined and agonised on the other side of their garden wall. The Auckland journalist has a world of sympathy for the benighted London boy who had never heard about the Bible. He seems to forget the fact that only quite a short time ago two cases cropped up in the South Island where children-witnesses knew nothing of God, of heaven, or of hell. And our godless system of public instruction is doing what lies in its power to bar out that knowledge from the mind and its practical effect from the heart and will of the youth of the Colony. The sanction of an oath depends on the witness's belief in an all-seeing God Who will reward and punish. Take away or undermine this belief and you at once destroy the sanctity, the binding power, the very ground and raison d'etre ot an oath. A growing disregard for the sanctity of an oath will, undoubtedly, be one of the early results of our godless State monopoly in primary education. But it will be only one result. Others will follow in swift and deadly course. When the mind revolts against eternal truths, the heart and will speedily set themselves up in permanent insurrection against the ten commandments. Mark Twain has no love, if he has no hatred, missionary for the Catholic Church. He was a methods. humourist — and he wrote A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. But uuder his two bushy eyebrows there peeped out two twinkling eyes — like a pair of ferrets from a pair of holes — and they saw as far through an iron door as the eyes of any person we have come into contact with in a week of Sundays. Mark emphatically knows some kinds of good things when he sees them. And one of the thmgs that struck him most in his globe-trotting was the wholesouled devotedness and the relatively great success of Catholic

missionaries in the unchanging East. His words upon the subject are of special interest just now, in view of the recent utterances of Cardinal Moran, who is, perhaps, one of the greatest living authorities upon the question of foreign missions. In his book,' Following the Equator, he says (p. 662) :•— Protestant missionary work, as a rule, is coldly regarded by tha commercial white colonists all over the heathen world ; and its product is nicknamed ' rice-obristiane,' — occapationless incapable*, who join the Church for revenue only. But I think it would ba diffiouH to pioV a flaw in the work ot those Catholic monk* ; and £ believe that the disposition to attempt it has not shown itself. * * » Another non-Catholic writer, Mr. Amst Reid, has the following in point in his work F/ont Pekin to St. Petersburg : — The Roman Catholio missions of China are, I think, more successful, or at all events th«y are less unsuccessful, than are the Protestant missions. The Roman Catholic priest lives among and for the people, e»ts the same food, and suffers the same hardship*. The Protestant missionary lives an alien life, ontside the spirit of the Chinese heart and feeling. . . Apart from the distribution of praise or blame, there remains the fact that the methods of the tw* Churches are entirely different. The reason, of course, is in th© different, circumstances of a celibate and a non-celibate clergy. The mavried Protestant missionary, with his wife and children, requires a ojtcage and a pony carriage, or its equivalent. He does not require as the gossip of the treaty ports suggests, a luxurious villa and a well-appointed carriage ; he requires and asks nothing that is not nec^psiiy for the healthy maintenance of his family life. But yet to the Chinaman, to the coolie, whose earnings are not morethaa a shilling a week, the difference in the attitude of the two Churohes is great. Ido not see how the Protestant system can be changed, bat I do see that, if China is ever to be Christianised, it is more likely to bi Christianised by the Roman Catholio than by the Protestant method. Catholics will readily realise that there is a deeper-seated difference between the two sets of missionaries than is afforded by the cottage and pony-carriage on one side and the celibate life on. the other. There is on the side of the Catholic missionary the living faith, the whole-hearted devotion to duty, the apostolic spirit of sacrifice. All these enable our missionaries to effect much on the slenderest resources. What they could do with the magnificent resources of a single great Protestant missionary society at thetr disposal, Heaven only knows. We Catholics are given to praising the devotion of our missionaries. To our shame be it said that we are even more given to starve them, even at our own doors, by our neglect. A mare's nest is probably a very good asset A mare's nest, —when you find one. Now, if we may credit the Auckland Herald, the Italian Nuovs Antologia has alighted upon a beautiful specimen — to wit, that the Catholic Church in England is ' stationary, if not losingground.' The discoverer in the present instance is a certain Mr. Bagot. He is described by the anti-Catholic Italian journal as 'a Roman Catholic of great knowledge and experience.' All of which reminds us (1) that one Louis de Rouge~ mont, alias Something else, who was quite unknown to fame in> the land of the kangaroo and emu, was exploited in London by the Wide World Magazine as by far the most renowned! Australian explorer that ever saw a gum tree. Again (2) it does seem to us a trifle singular that this certain Mr. Bagot should be as unheard of among English Catholics as Louis de Rougemont was in Australia before the publication of his Munchausen adventures. It may be a mere coincidence, but it apparently goes to show that a man may be a very prominent Englishman in a paltry newspaper office at Turin or Rome, and yet be particularly c small potatoes 'at home. (3) Mr. Bagot is described as 'a Roman Catholic of great knowledge and experience.' The only evidence of Catholicism which he displays is to rail at confession, and to refer to ' papal domination,' Romanism, ' the robust Protestantism of the bulk of the English nation,' etc., in the peculiar theological slang which has been part of the kit of no- Popery sky-rocketers for the past three and a half centuries. The Liverpool Catholic Times — one of the greatest organs of Catholic news and thought in the English-speaking world — has the following to say of this mysterious Mr. Bagot whom the Herald has introduced to a New Zealand audience : 'We thought we knew not only the men who have been building up the Catholic Church here [in England], but all those Catholics who have been prominently associated with the work, and whose views on the subject are worthy of consideration.' And it adds: eWe did not know that there was such a gentleman as Mr. Bagot in existence.' We are inclined to believe that the Nuova Antologia has taken a leaf out of the book of tactics of the Contemporary, which has for many years past employed an anonymous quill-driver of Orange hue to assail "the Church under the aegis of a pen-name which would lead the unwary to suppose that the fellow is a genuine Catholic. • • # You know how old jokes that have been worn threadbare in the city are retailed in the country to shake the diaphragms of the rustics. Even Joe Miller — and not up to date, either— will convulse simple folk in places that are remote, unfriended,

slow. Old jokes, old clothes, old lies— they all follow ■re same route. The lie which is kicked out into the gutter ™i London will be devoured in the intellectual purlieus of Turin, if you only serve the unsavoury thing up to the proper people with the proper sauce. And the bulk of the readers of the Nuova Antologia are veritable gobemouches in all matters that reflect unfavourably on the Catholic Church. This Mr. Bagot — whoever he may be — has been simply palming off on a few gullible Italians an insane tale that originated last year in the brain of the Rev. Hu#h Price Hughes and some kindred souls, whose gross manipulation of figures >n point was promptly exposed, both in the Catholic and Protestant Press from one end of Great Britain to the other. We dealt with the matter pretty fully at the the time. Our readers will remember that the controversy hinged on the Registrar-General's marriage returns. As far as these figures went, they conclusively proved that the Catholic Church is spreading faster in England than the member-* of any of the great Protestant creeds. Some people attempt to minimise the growth of Catholicism in England on the principle that others whistle to keep their courage up. But the evidence of the Catholic advance is so patent to those who are 'on the premises ' and in the best position to judge, that great Protestant Associations, such as the Alliance, etc., have been formed with the chief or sole purpose of checking it — partly by the dissemination of gross travesties of the Church's doctrines and practices ; partly by the systematic spread of blackguardly tales regarding her clergy and religious Orders ; and partly — as in the case of the Orange Society- by an open or thinly disguised appeal for the imposition of penal legislation. ■* * * The Congregational ist leader, Dr. Horton, passes as a certain authority among many people in New Zealand. And he has expressed his conviction that what he not very politely terms ' Romanism ' is spreading with such rapidity in England that before long the country will be practically Catholic. His no-Popery pamphlet Romanism and National Decay, was written to arouse the sentiment ol the unthinking Protestant masses against the danger which, he conceived, menaced the country from this source. We do not hold so roseate a view of the early conversion of England as Dr. Horton. We merely mention his opinion as indicating, in so far, the drift of Protestant thought upon the matter. Others, too, who cannot be accused of any sympathy with the Catholic Church, have given their testimony as to the reality of the Romeward movement in England. For instance, the Rev. {. Gibb, a leading member of the Presbyterian Church in Otago, writing in the Otago Daily Times, in the early part of May, said : ' No man capable of discerning the signs of the times can doubt that we are face to face with a reactionary movement — a movement in the direction of Roman Catholicism. When I returned from my visit to the Home Country four years ago, I emphatically stated my conviction that the battle ol the Reformation would shortly have to be fought over again in England ; perhaps also even in Scotland. Few men gave heed to my opinion at the time. But already facts have ranged themselves on my side. And though not bo noticeable, the same tendency is at work in these colonies.' • * • And, again, we have the evidence of the well-known non-Catholic writer, Mr. W. H. Mallock, who, in his CUnsa, and Masses, published in 1896, in comparing the statistics of industries, trades, and professions of 1891 with those of 1881, says (pp. 117-118} :—'lt: — 'It will be seen, for instance, that the •clergy of the Established Church have increased absolutely by •eleven per cent., but that relatively to the population they thave not increased, they have only kept pace with it. The Nonconformist clergy, on the other hand, though they have absolutely increased by three per cent., have relatively to the population decreased by eight per cent. ; whilst the Roman Catholic clergy have increased absolutely by twenty per Cent., and relatively to the population by nine per cent.'